


All but Broken

by Kita_the_Spaz



Category: Naruto
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-16
Updated: 2014-07-16
Packaged: 2018-02-09 03:21:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1967073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kita_the_Spaz/pseuds/Kita_the_Spaz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kakashi couldn’t help but notice that there was something very, very wrong with Umino Iruka.</p><p><b>Contains (Highlight to view):</b> <span class="spoiler">Mentions of pre-teens and teenagers dying. This is a ninja village, folks. It’s to be expected. Iruka making a determined effort to fillet Kakashi and assorted foul language.</span></p><p><b>Prompt/Scenario:</b> #48 by jerricho11@ff.net: kakashi is cruel to iruka (justified perhaps but still) he wont coddle the chunnin but when he sees a crack in the teachers carefully crafted emotional shell he decides to investigate. how close to breaking is he? stress perhaps, what does a teacher have to be stressed about anyway? then again, just how many of irukas dear students have been killed? perhaps iruka is breaking with good reason. whats a copy ninja to do...</p>
            </blockquote>





	All but Broken

**Author's Note:**

> This one gave me some trouble before it decided to cooperate. Sorry for the lack of porn but I just couldn’t work it in. Thanks to M for being willing to put up with yet another of my random randomness AKA story.

As much as he hated to admit it to himself, Kakashi had long since grown used to how his interactions with Naruto’s former teacher and in loco parentis figure, Umino Iruka, would go. It was a predictable and, in an odd way, reassuring routine in a life where nothing was assured, not even his next breath. Despite the venom in it, Kakashi liked having something that _steady_ in his day-to-day life.

But there was venom there, that was for certain. Despite Umino’s apology to him after the chuunin exam nominations, he had remained coldly polite to Kakashi afterwards. Even his usual, “Come back safely,” or “May the soles of your feet be firm,” salutations when handing out mission scrolls were edged with glacial chill to a point where Kakashi thought he might get frostbite if he weren’t careful.

There was some gleefully sadistic little part of Kakashi that took pleasure in provoking Umino, to see the chill fade beneath the heat of his anger, and the cool façade crack and shatter; allowing a glimpse of the furious inferno at the heart of the man. Even those glimpses under the underneath were predictable and reassuring in their own way. He could always count on Umino fuming at him, followed by a brief and painfully accurate assessment of Kakashi’s own shortcomings, both in life and in filling out paperwork, and then Umino either frostily telling him to leave the mission room and to only come back when he could act more like his age and not his shoe size or offering to teach him how to fill out paperwork with his toes, because that was the only part of him Umino wouldn’t break. And he had once left no doubt in Kakashi’s mind that he could do it, even to someone of Kakashi’s skill set.

“Because,” Umino had said with a smugly superior smirk, “I teach beginners every single day of my life. There is nothing you can throw at me that I don’t already have a counter for, and being that it’s you and not a pre-genin, I won’t be inclined to pull my punches.” That was the norm of their encounters; him barbing and baiting the chuunin and Umino _ever-so_ -politely flaying him verbally.

So it was with some surprise that he noted Umino’s distraction when he turned in a mission report that he’d bribed Guruko to drool on. Normally, that would have been grounds for yet another explosion, or at the very least, a coldly reproving stare. With only a glance, Umino stamped the report and slid it into the “completed” receptacle, followed with a fixed smile and a distracted-sounding “Thank you for your hard work.”

That wasn’t like the chuunin he took great pleasure in baiting at all, and Kakashi did _not_ like it in the least. So instead of leaving the mission room, Kakashi took himself off to one side, blending effortlessly into the furnishings with the ease of much practice. From his self-appointed post, Kakashi observed Umino mechanically performing his duties. While paper-pushing would normally have bored Kakashi to tears, there was something under the stilted motions and automatic responses that triggered Kakashi’s instincts. So he waited and watched.

For what, he wasn’t sure, though he had his suspicions.

Even Umino’s fellow desk chuunin seemed aware that something was amiss with their co-worker, eying him with concern. They said nothing, offering only smiles when Umino’s distant gaze skated their way.

Tsunade strode in, papers in one hand and a mug in the other. She was obviously fresh out of a meeting, judging by the pinched look on her face and Shizune following behind her with arms full of more paperwork. Tsunade glanced up from her papers, hazel eyes sweeping the mission desk. Her lips tightened into a thin line and the crease between her brow became even more pronounced.

Kakashi noted that her stare had fixed on Umino.

“Iruka-sensei!” Tsunade barked sharply. “What in the nine hells are you doing here? As I recall, you are on medical leave for the next week. I should know, since I assigned it!”

Umino met her gaze and for a split second, the mask-like smile he wore cracked and fell away. His lips quivered and his brown eyes filled with a potent mix of emotions; guilt, rage and under that, a look of completely befuddled survival. The sort of bewilderment that came from outliving others— people you cared for— and not knowing why.

It was a feeling Kakashi understood all too well. It had been his constant companion since he was a child and had found his father lying in a pool of his own blood in the courtyard of the Hatake estate. It had only grown stronger as his team died, one by one, until only he had been left.

Then, quickly as it had fallen, the mask slipped back into place and the maelstrom of confused emotions was shuttered away. The pained expression Umino favored Tsunade with seemed genuine enough, if a little brittle around the edges. “Please, Tsunade-sama,” he pled. “I need something to do. I just can’t sit around all day and stare at empty spaces...”

 _Where others had once been_ , Kakashi added silently, knowing what had gone unsaid.

Tsunade pursed her lips in a displeased moue. “You don’t have to go home,” she relented. “But I can’t have you here. It sets too much of a bad example for other idiots who try to do too much— like take missions— when they’re badly injured.” 

She turned on her heel and fixed Kakashi with a gimlet glare, immune to his _don’t-look-at-me-I’m-not-here_ misdirection. “And, yes, I’m talking to you, brat. Be a bit less of a pain in my ass and get Iruka-sensei out of here.”

Turning her attention back to Umino, Tsunade went on, but not without some sympathy in her sharp gaze. “I can’t and won’t force you to go home, but as you are on medical leave, you are forbidden the mission room. And,” she said with a wry twist of her lips. “Don’t think you can go holing up at the academy either. I know classes are currently on break, and there is nothing there that needs doing. After all, I know full well that you already finished writing your lesson plan.” She smirked. “Now get out of here, both of you.”

Umino rose to his feet and bowed stiffly to Tsunade. Kakashi wondered just how much was injury and what percent was offended dignity.

Kakashi unfolded himself from the chair he’d occupied and loped easily to Umino’s side. “I know lots of places you could go to keep yourself _occupied_ , sensei,” he offered with a practiced leer in his voice.

A spark of life rekindled in the chuunin’s eyes. “I know a place you can go,” he muttered grimly back.

Kakashi grinned unrepentantly behind his mask. That was more like it! “Ooh, your place or mine?” he rumbled close to Umino’s ear.

He expected the elbow to the gut and blocked it effortlessly. What he did not expect was Umino to whirl and deliver a blindingly fast underhanded fist to the kidney. His flak vest failed to block the brunt of it. Kakashi grunted and quickly moved back out of range. “I see you have some aggression issues you need to work off, sensei,” he teased, a little breathlessly. That had been a damned solid hit. “I could help you with that.”

Umino’s eyes blazed briefly. “This isn’t one of your pornographic books and sex is not an answer for everything!”

Kakashi pretended injury. “Mah, how you wound me!”

Umino’s lips tightened in a vicious grin. “Not enough; you’re not bleeding yet.”

Snorting laughter, Kakashi retorted. “There’s more of that aggression showing again. And here I was going to suggest we go to a training field and spar. Naughty, sensei, for thinking such lewd thoughts.”

He had to duck under another thrown punch, and only barely managed to dance away from the handful of senbon needles that peppered the wall behind him. Umino offered him a wolfish smile. “Training field nine in half an hour. And if you’re late, I’ll see to it you regret it... though not for long.”

Tsunade looked up from where she had dropped in Umino’s abandoned seat and waved an admonitory finger at them. “No taijutsu. I might have healed you, Iruka-sensei, but there are some repairs the body has to do on its own. I don’t want to have to patch you up again, so soon.”

Flushing, Umino offered her another, less perfunctory bow before turning to stride out.

When he was out of earshot, Tsunade looked up at Kakashi, one perfectly penciled brow arching. “And just what were you hoping to accomplish, short of a richly deserved injury, by provoking Iruka-sensei like that, brat?”

Kakashi gave her one of his most innocent looks. “Hokage-sama?”

She snorted indelicately and set her mug down with a thump. “Do you take me for an idiot? I’ve turned a blind on on your baiting Iruka-sensei in the past, but why should I now? Why today?”

Kakashi paused and considered carefully. Finally he shook his head. “Would you believe me if I said I don’t know?”

Tsunade studied him for a long moment before a slow smile worked its way across her lips. “Oddly enough, I would. Go on.” She waved a hand at him leisurely. “Go get it out of your systems. But If anything goes wrong, promise me you’ll bring Iruka-sensei straight back to the hospital.”

Kakashi nodded and took himself out of there.

Contrary to popular belief, Kakashi wasn’t always over an hour late to everything. He just prided himself on testing the patience of others... to the very limits. Instinctively, he knew that would not be the way to go with this, so he was no more than a few moments late arriving at training field nine. Nine was one of the fields most often used by those practicing tree-walking, an expanse of massive trees that had been old when Konoha was new.

Umino dropped lithely out of one of the giant trees on the far end of the field from where Kakashi stood. “You’re something resembling on time,” he sounded surprised.

Kakashi offered one of his closed-eye grins. “I like to keep people guessing.”

Snorting, Umino retorted, “At what moronic excuse you’ll use to justify your tardiness?” He tilted his head and dropped into a pitch-perfect imitation of Kakashi. “ _‘Mah, sorry for the delay but I took a detour on the road of life and found these little people who needed a house dropped on this evil sorceresses head,’_ or _‘Well, you see, there was this really big cat and he wanted me to help him in his battle against the queen who was holding the Land of Frost in her icy grip,’_ or even _‘I’m not late, I just have a flexible notion of temporal events and how they pertain to me.’_ ”

Kakashi chortled. “I’ll have to remember those for a future occasion. How creative you are, Umino-san. Maybe I should hire you to come up with new excuses for me.”

“Iruka-sensei,” the chuunin corrected him sourly. “That name and honorific rightly belonged to my father. I earned the right to be called sensei, and I’ll thank you to remember that, and I’ll be damned before I help you come up with more outrageous lies to cover up your deplorable habits.”

Kakashi was indisputably pleased with himself. Already Um- _Iruka_ was acting far more like himself, a far creature from the distracted, distant one he’d been in the mission room.

“Your loss.” Chuckling, Kakashi shrugged carelessly. “So how do you want to do this? As I recall, Tsunade forbade taijutsu.”

Iruka just stared at him from across the field, brown eyes dark. “What exactly is it you want? We all know you’re a jackass, but today you were—”

“Were what?” Kakashi raised an eyebrow.

Iruka heaved an irritated sigh. “Just tell me what the hell you want, Hatake-san.”

Kakashi rolled his shoulders in a deliberately exaggerated shrug. “You want to be called Iruka-sensei, I’ll thank you to call me Kakashi. And who said I want anything?”

Iruka’s face went red. “I’m not a fool, _Kakashi_ -san. You never do anything without a reason. You make think Naruto’s dense, but he sees more than people give him credit for and he figured you out in under a month. For all the careless crap you pull, you have an ulterior motive to everything you do. So you were deliberately being even more of an ass than usual in the mission room, so why?”

Kakashi regarded Iruka with his head tilted to one side. “What if I’m trying to figure you out, sensei?”

Iruka snarled, baring his teeth in an expression that was curiously reminiscent of one of Kakashi’s dogs. “A normal person would simply observe or ask questions.”

“I’m shinobi, we’re hardly shining examples of normalcy,” Kakashi offered dryly. “But if you want me to ask questions, lets start with why you were so distracted, you accepted my mission report without a word about the state it was in.”

Iruka actually visibly flinched. “I had other things on my mind.”

Kakashi snorted. “You suck at misdirection, sensei. Answer the question honestly.”

Iruka’s eyes blazed and for a moment his lips twitched into something that might have been a smile. “How about this?” he chuckled darkly.”We will spar, but this way...if you can catch me within— lets say— thirty minutes, I’ll answer any questions you have. Truthfully.”

“And if I don’t?” Not that he had any doubt he would, but always best to observe the proprieties.

This time Iruka did smile, wryly. “Do you doubt yourself so much, Kakashi-san? Well, then, your forfeit will be... to stop reading porn in public.”

“That seems a bit excessive, sensei.” Kakashi spread his hands in the air. “Whatever will I do with myself on missions?”

“Far be it for you to actually work on assignment.” Iruka fixed him with a scowl. “Very well then, for ninety consecutive days, when not in the field, you will refrain from reading your porn while in public. And just to be clear on things, in public refers to any place where you might be observed— the mission room, walking in the street, eating in a restaurant, et cetera. You may read in the privacy of your own home, and while away from the village and its environs.” Iruka pinned him under a level stare. “Deal?”

“For that, I get to ask you any questions? Is there a limit on the number of questions?” Kakashi rebutted.

“No,” Iruka shook his head. “But I will set a time limit of an hour. So if you can think of enough questions you want to ask for an entire hour, ask away, but once the time is up, you get nothing more.”

“Deal.”

Iruka nodded. “Time starts now. Catch me if you can.” He vanished in a puff of smoke, leaving a broken branch in his place.

 _Clever!_ Kakashi grinned behind his mask. This was going to be fun. And he’d get the sensei to answer questions. Win-win.

Leaping to the nearest tree to get a decent vantage point, Kakashi lifted his hitai-ate and scanned the training field with his Sharingan, looking for Iruka’s distinctive chakra pattern or smaller chakra points that could mean traps. He saw nothing but the ambient chakra traces put off by every living thing; the pale greenish chakra of the trees and shrubs, the brighter copper fire of a rabbit darting across the grass, and the ley-lines, natural reservoirs of earth energy, where all the ambient traces pooled and flowed like multi-colored rivers of pure sunlight.

The slightest glimmer along one of those bright channels caught his eye, barely discernible against the ribbon of energy. If he hadn’t had his Sharingan uncovered, he’d never have seen it.

Kakashi traced the ripple, finding the thread of chakra that bound all together in the illusion. Clever, _clever_ sensei, to hide his own chakra in such a way. Like holding a candle up to the sun— the light of the sun would drown out and disguise the lesser flame.

Too bad it wasn’t clever enough.

Kakashi kept to the trees, working his way to where he’d spotted the tiny irregularity, keeping on high alert for traps or shadow-clones. He’d more than once seen Iruka’s propensity for traps and knew that Iruka had enough time to set up a few. He found one trap the hard way, having to dodge a spray of senbon needles and discovered and triggered another, keeping well clear of the cloud of noxious smoke it emitted. He spotted a shadow clone high in the branches of a tall pine and dispatched it with a kunai before it saw him.

Dropping down into the lower branches, Kakashi warily watched for both another trap and for the miniscule disturbance that had led him here. He felt the barely-there traces of an earth jutsu and that led him to a place directly over the ley-line where the ground was mounded just a bit higher that the forest floor around it. He laughed internally. Trust a sensei to play a game of hide-and-seek, going to ground (quite literally, too) in a place where he would quite easily overlooked.

There was a trip-wire around the raised spot, linked to several saplings that were bent back nearly double and festooned with shuriken and kunai. One touch of that wire and anyone unlucky enough to be in the way would be a pincushion from at least four different directions.

Kakashi lowered himself to the ground and silently disarmed the trap, padding softly and silently to the now unprotected mound of earth. Grinning wickedly, he plunged one hand into the dirt, expecting to haul up a very surprised chuunin-sensei.

Instead he got the flash-bang of an explosive tag and blinding white light geysering from the hole his fist had just made, searing his eyes and making him involuntarily cry out in pain, blinded.

Kakashi staggered back a step, blinking furiously to clear his eyes. While his normal eye had been dazzled by the bright flash, his Sharingan was in much worse shape, overloaded by the violent upwelling light. His could still see the after-image of the chakra tag Iruka had used to channel the ley-line’s power into light, dark against the white haze that blurred everything, washing the chakra landscape out.

Even more than half-blind, he had still marked the location of the nearest bit of shrubbery and took refuge there, tugging his headband back down over the Sharingan, now throbbing painfully, and sending spikes of pain through his skull. More than a bit annoyed with himself for underestimating Iruka, Kakashi hunkered down, waiting for his uncovered eye to clear.

When he could see something besides shapes and shadows, Kakashi dared a cautious glance through the shrubbery.

Iruka stood scant paces away, arms folded over his chest and head cocked to one side. “You really shouldn’t be so careless,” he chided, his mouth quirking up in a wry smile.

Reflexively, Kakashi tossed a kunai at him.

Rather than blocking it, Iruka simply dodged it deftly, twisting so it sailed harmlessly past his ear. “And you should be more aware of your surroundings,” Iruka tsked. “You have fifteen minutes left.” He vanished into smoke, leaving only a tiny whorl of leaves behind.

Kakashi cursed under his breath and moved quickly back up into the canopy, where he surveyed the training field. No sign of Iruka, but that was only to be expected. He’d have to do something crazy if he intended to catch the man before the time limit was up.

Moving his hands in a quick series of signs, Kakashi summoned as many clones as he could comfortably support. He scattered most of them, with instructions to find and distract Iruka. Once they found him, they were to keep him pinned in one place long enough for Kakashi to get close enough to capture the damned tricky bastard.

He kept three with him and put a henge on them, making them look like chuunin he’d often seen working in the mission room with Iruka. They’d be the bait, to lure the sensei out into the open. He directed the clones to circle around and outside of the marked borders of the training field, and come up on it from the direction of the center of the village, like they’d been passing by and had spotted Iruka, and then call out greetings to him. Hopefully, that would be enough of a distraction.

It was really a very good plan for something made on the fly and Kakashi had no idea when it all went wrong.

He reeled beneath a sudden influx of chakra, because in a matter of seconds, every single one of his clones had been dispatched, and the last information they had relayed had been nothing but overlapping images of Iruka, his face frozen in a rictus of anguished fury.

“ _Hatake!_ ” A roar echoed through the trees, a scream of pure rage— not the infuriation or annoyance that often accompanied Kakashi’s baiting.

He had only a split second before Iruka was on him, and he’d obviously forgotten all of Tsunade’s warnings about taijutsu in blind fury.

Iruka was a whirling dervish, hampered not at all by his injuries, and raining lightning-fast attacks on Kakashi. Stunned, Kakashi actually found himself outmatched, and not because he was trying to avoid injuring the sensei. He’d expected Iruka’s attacks to be textbook perfect, but instead, Iruka fought like a street rat, all darting movements and dirty tricks.

Kakashi blocked a throat shot that would have left him choking on his own swollen trachea had it connected and fell back a pace, trying not to lash back at Iruka. Normally, with someone trying this hard to kill him, Kakashi would have already struck to kill or disable with no qualms, but this was Umino Iruka, whose loyalty and integrity were without question. Not to mention, Naruto and Sakura would kill him if he dared harm the chuunin.

Kakashi danced away from a series of low kicks, meant clearly to disable and tried to think of a way to stop Iruka without harming him. If he could just disengage long enough for a jutsu, he had a couple that could be used as a capture device.

But Iruka was apparently not going to give him a chance, staying close and forcing Kakashi to block any number of vicious blows. He couldn’t block all of them, though. There were a couple he would definitely be feeling later, when the adrenaline wore off.

Kakashi leapt over a leg sweep and in desperation for enough space to maneuver, caught a branch, swinging himself up into the foliage. 

Iruka didn’t falter, leaping after him with a snarl.

Kakashi bounded for the next tree, catching a low branch with one hand and using it to catapult himself up, using chakra to stick to the side of the trunk and run even higher.

Iruka stayed close on his heels. He obviously wasn’t about to give Kakashi the opportunity to counterattack. 

Kakashi was beginning to think he’d have to hurt the sensei to stop him. Of, course he’d have to take him to Tsunade afterwards and explain what happened and that would lead to a psych evaluation for Iruka and... Kakashi stopped that train of thought, ducking around another branch and vaulting backwards to a different tree. Considering Iruka’s current state of mind (homicidal), an investigation would not bode well for the man.

Kakashi let go of the branch he was on and dropped twenty or so feet straight down, landing on one of the wider branches and running along it to leap to another tree.

Something painfully heavy impacted with his shoulders, sending Kakashi sprawling. He rolled with the blow, only to find himself tumbling painfully into the fork of branch and trunk with Iruka looming over him, murder in his eye.

Fuck. He was going to die, killed ignominiously by a schoolteacher.

“Go, Iruka-sensei! Kick his butt!” The high, childish voice was accompanied by cheers and delighted whoops.

Iruka’s head snapped up.

Kakashi turned his head to see what Iruka was looking at.

They were near the northern edge of the field, not far from the road, where a small group of pre-genin had clustered, watching the fight between their sensei and Kakashi. 

The murderous rage fled from Iruka’s expression and sanity once more ruled in his eyes.

Making a mortified sound, Iruka snapped his hands together in the seals for a teleportation jutsu.

Kakashi caught his hands before he could finish, firmly keeping Iruka from fleeing. Rising smoothly, he turned to offer a jaunty salute to the small group of children and dropped a smoke pellet at his and Iruka’s feet.

Under the cover of the smoke, Kakashi leapt deeper into the canopy, far from the wondering gazes of the kids, tugging Iruka after him. When they were safely hidden deep in the green-mottled twilight beneath the leaves, Kakashi let got of Iruka’s wrist and turned to face him.

Iruka’s face was stricken, brown eyes white-rimmed and terrified. “Oh, gods...” he whispered, shaking like a leaf in a windstorm.

“Iruka-sensei?” Kakashi noted with concern that Iruka’s bronzed skin seemed sallow. “Calm down.”

Still shaking, Iruka sank down to slump against the trunk of the tree they were perched in. “Calm down?” he echoed, his voice scaling just this side of hysterical. “I nearly killed you! I nearly killed you in front of a bunch of children!”

“Mah, it’s not that bad,” Kakashi told him, a little put out that Iruka thought he’d have gone down so easily.

The wild-eyed look Iruka shot him should have been lethal in its own regard. “Yes it is, you bastard! I was trying to kill the fucking copy-nin, a comrade in arms— right in front of impressionable children!”

Kakashi chuckled dryly. “You could have always convinced them I had turned traitor.”

From a slumped position it shouldn’t have been possible to move that fast, but in the space between breaths, Iruka was in his face, hands fisted in the collar of Kakashi’s flak vest. _“Don’t say that!”_

Kakashi brought his hands up defensively, very definitely not wanting a repeat of earlier. And it wasn’t because he was under the impression that Iruka could kick his ass, or anything, really. “Relax, sensei, it was just a joke.”

Iruka’s eyes blazed again. “Just like your using the images of Hisoka Michio and Makoto Riko was a _joke_?”

Kakashi rolled his shoulders in a careful shrug. “I just used the images of a couple of chuunin I’d seen around you in the mission room.”

“A couple of chuunin you’d seen in the mission room?” Iruka repeated incredulously. All the anger seemed to flow out of him and his shoulders sagged. “Gods, I’m an idiot to think you’d know or care.”

“Know what?” Kakashi asked just a little defensively.

“They’re dead, you ass!” Iruka snapped, his voice breaking. “How do you think I was injured? I was on a four man mission with them when things went all pear-shaped. We were attacked by a group of rogue-nin who knew every-damned-thing about our mission. As well they should have, because Hisoka had betrayed us. He stabbed Makoto before she had time to realize anything was wrong.” Iruka’s tone wavered. “I killed him before we managed to beat the rogues back and make a run for the border. I killed him, watched the light go out of his eyes. I killed someone who had once been my student!”

Iruka was shaking again, so hard his hands jerked on the collar of Kakashi’s vest. Kakashi gently disengaged those clenched fingers and when Iruka sagged, wrapped an arm around his shoulders and guided him down to sit on the widest part of the branch.

A lot of things made sense now. The sudden madness that had overtaken the sensei, when Kakashi had henged his clones to look like three random people he’d seen in the sensei’s company before had been from seeing two people he knew were dead, one of whom Iruka had killed himself.

Iruka shook convulsively and buried his face in his hands. “I killed him,” he repeated brokenly. “I killed one of my students.”

“ _Not_ one of your students,” Kakashi corrected him sharply.

Obviously startled by Kakashi’s biting tone, Iruka flinched and looked up in alarm. Kakashi thought that his expression was disturbingly like a deer that had spotted a wolf.

“He might have been, _once_ , and I’m sure you trained him to the very best of your ability or he’d never have made it to chuunin. But what he became is a choice he made himself and you had nothing to do with it or his character failings. Nothing to blame yourself for,” Kakashi said with an undertone of steel he hoped would get through to Iruka. “You said yourself that he killed Makoto. If you hadn’t stopped him, he’d no doubt have helped those rogue-nin slaughter you and the rest of your team. You know that.”

Iruka blinked slowly and looked down at his shaking hands. “How many children have I trained to got out there and die? Every day there’s more names on the memorial stone and so many of them were barely even teenagers.” His voice broke.

“There are enough enemies out there that you don’t have to add another one in here,” Kakashi chided him cuttingly, thumping a finger hard against Iruka’s skull to illustrate his point.

Ire sparked In Iruka’s eyes and he swatted Kakashi’s hand away with a glare. “Don’t patronize me!”

Kakashi snorted a laugh. “I’m not. Even the old hag thinks you’re a damned fine teacher. You managed to graduate Naruto and from what I’ve seen _that_ took some doing.”

Iruka flushed and the anger faded from his face. “That’s not the half of it,” he said quietly. “I know you read the report on what happened when you took on Team Seven and you know what would have happened if I’d arrived just a minute later. When I think, if...”

“Then don’t,” Kakashi prodded. “‘If-only’s’ only hurt you.”

Iruka quirked a wry half-smile. “You know, you’re pretty smart for a porn-reading pervert.”

“You’re pretty, too,” Kakashi teased, fluttering his eyelashes exaggeratedly.

Iruka snorted and socked Kakashi in the ribs. “I’m devastatingly handsome, I’ll have you know. You, you’re just a mask and an eyeball. So not attractive. I think Anko’d kill you for those lashes, though.”

“Oh, really?” Grinning and feeling a bit daring, Kakashi tugged his mask down. “I’ll have you know I wear this mask because I’m all kinds of sexy. If I didn’t I’d have to beat off hordes of adoring fans.”

Iruka raised an eyebrow in a way that said he’d believe it when he saw it, but he was smiling, the first genuine smile Kakashi had seen from him lately.

Kakashi couldn’t help smiling back, feeling immensely better than he had all day.

“Well,” Iruka said after a moment. “I suppose you did catch me, though rather unconventionally, so I suppose I owe you that hour of questions after all.”

Kakashi shrugged. “I think it was outside of the time limit you set, sensei, so in truth, I think the forfeit is mine.”

Iruka regarded him seriously for a moment. “Shall we call it a draw and let it go, then?”

“I think we should both pay our forfeit, actually. I give up my porn for ninety days, barring missions and in private, and I get to ask you that hour’s worth of questions. What do you say?” Kakashi couldn’t help smirking at the sensei.

Iruka heaved a sigh. “Fine.”

“Good,” Kakashi’s grin grew even wider until it threatened to split his face in half. “So my first question is: Can I read _Icha Icha_ to you in the privacy of either of our apartments? It’s not in public!”

“Hatake!” Iruka surged to his feet, blood-red and shaking with fury.

Kakashi rolled away, springing lightly to his feet. “What? It’s a legitimate question!”

Iruka roared and cocked a fist, already closing the distance between them.

Kakashi laughed gleefully. “That’s not a _no_ , Iruka-sensei!”

**Author's Note:**

> Remember to leave a comment below, or at the [LJ post](http://kakairu-fest.livejournal.com/129231.html?mode=reply#add_comment)!


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